tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post4147915631978336382..comments2018-02-16T11:40:25.123-05:00Comments on In the Middle: 101 Uses for a Dead DogJeffrey Cohenhttps://plus.google.com/110433684739546897626noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61947379947627916872007-02-28T20:29:00.000-05:002007-02-28T20:29:00.000-05:00Yes, I could't recall any instances either but its...Yes, I could't recall any instances either but its ten years since i looked at the penitentials. I know Lisa Downing's excellent Desiring the Dead on French literature and readings of Lynn Stopkewich's film Kissed but I wouldn't have thought necrophilia was a hot topic in Cultural studies either!Michael O'Rourkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03110210128389911666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-20935607647620557602007-02-28T19:41:00.000-05:002007-02-28T19:41:00.000-05:00Do the penitentials have anything in them on necro...<I>Do the penitentials have anything in them on necrobestial sex?</I><BR/><BR/>Not that I've seen. Bestiality, yes, and eating carrion, yes. But some combination of the two? No. <BR/><BR/>I don't know of a single recorded case of this from the MA: but then again, I haven't looked (apart from the Penitentials, but that was a carrion hunt). Can't think of any incidences offhand of normative necrophilia either.<BR/><BR/>Just reading Doris Sommer's article on the political utility of the humanities in the Oct 2006 PMLA. She refers to 'necrophilia' as a 'popular cultural studies topic' (along with the more expected topics of 'violence...consumerism, [and] abuse of human rights'). News to me! And rather stands out! At any rate, I know just where to look (a quick keyword of necrophilia on the MLA DB gets me nearly 50 hits, mostly on Jacobean tragedy and trash cinema).Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-25895855953903958032007-02-28T19:11:00.000-05:002007-02-28T19:11:00.000-05:00Do the penitentials have anything in them on necro...Do the penitentials have anything in them on necrobestial sex?Michael O'Rourkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03110210128389911666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-59050306494060858862007-02-28T08:29:00.000-05:002007-02-28T08:29:00.000-05:00Any thoughts. Karl?None yet.But, yes, thanks: what...<I>Any thoughts. Karl?</I><BR/><BR/>None yet.<BR/><BR/>But, yes, thanks: what a marvelous, fun passage! <I>Not</I> apposite for the Middle Ages--where sex, if it damages, seems to damage the agent rather than the object (at least in moral rather than legal discourses, at least so far as I know)--but the article I'm conceiving (to be written, oh, let's say a year from now), doesn't necessarily <I>have</I> to be medieval.<BR/><BR/>More to come later? A busy time.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3361812890708861052007-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:002007-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:00Hi Karl, Can I recommend Patricia MacCormack's art...Hi Karl, <BR/><BR/>Can I recommend Patricia MacCormack's article "Necrosexuality" which discusses Flesh for Frankenstein: www.rhizomes.net/issue11/maccormack/index.html <BR/><BR/>There's a great (although anthropocentric) moment at the beginning of Slavoj Zizek, Eric Santner and Kenneth Reinhard's The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology which your post reminded me of:<BR/><BR/>"Is this love of the dead neighbor really just Kierkegaard's theological idiosyncrasy? In some "radical" circles in the United States, there came recently a proposal to "rethink" the rights of necrophiliacs (those who desire to have sex with dead bodies). So the idea was formulated that, in the same way people give permission for their organs to be used for medical purposes in the case of their sudden death, people should also be allowed to grant permission for their bodies to be given to necrophiliacs to play with. Is this proposal not the perfect examplification of how a particular politically correct stance realizes Kierkegaard's insight into how the only good neighbor is a dead neighbor? A dead neighbor-a corpse-is the ideal sexual partner of a "tolerant" subject trying to avoid either harassing or being harassed: by definition, a corpse cannot be harassed; at the same time, a dead body does not enjoy, so the disturbing threat of the partner's excessive enjoyment is also eliminated" (3)<BR/><BR/>I wonder what effects substituting dead pet(s)/animal(s), good pet/animal, and necrobestiophiliacs in the above quotation might bring about? (If we are in any doubt that it is the voice of Zizek the tellaway phrase is " Is this...not").<BR/><BR/>Any thoughts. Karl?Michael O'Rourkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03110210128389911666noreply@blogger.com